Robert Pfleghardt is speaking out about the drunken prank that led to his breast cancer diagnosis.
Pfleghardt, 62, of Vienna, Virginia, was on a boys’ trip to Las Vegas in 2021 when a friend gave him what he called a “titty twister” during a night of drinking. The retired accountant told how the group was “being silly boys having drinks” when the friend reached over and pinched his nipple hard. “It really hurt,” he said.
He brushed off the pain at first, but kept rubbing his chest the following week and discovered a lump the size of an eraser sitting right next to his nipple. “It was kind of weird but I just blew it off,” Pfleghardt explained. “Guys don’t get breast cancer, so I thought nothing of it.”
The lump nagged at him until he finally got it checked. A nurse practitioner took one look and immediately flagged it for further investigation. Staff ordered a mammogram, though with fewer than one percent of all breast cancers in the US affecting men, they had assumed he was a woman. “It was really weird getting a mammogram, you kind of laugh,” Pfleghardt recalled. “They called out for Mrs Pfleghardt instead of Mr Pfleghardt.” He noted that staff even announced a man was walking through an area where women were getting scans with their tops off.
The procedure confirmed the worst: breast cancer, with concerns it had already spread to his lymph nodes. “I laughed a little at first. I thought that’s kind of funny for a dude to have breast cancer,” he remembered. “I probably weigh around 180 [pounds], I’m not heavy, I don’t have man boobs or anything.”
The reality hit hard. Pfleghardt went into what he described as “zombie mode,” paralyzed by the news. He made the decision to keep it from nearly everyone. “I decided not to tell my children, or my in laws, or family,” he said. “It was just me and my wife who knew. It was Christmas time, I didn’t want to ruin it.”
Tests through the 2021 holiday season confirmed the cancer had reached one lymph node. Doctors pushed for a double mastectomy. “It was happening so quickly, and I was scared, I had never had surgery,” Pfleghardt said. “The concept of someone cutting into my chest was intimidating.” Nerves won out, and he opted for a lumpectomy instead in January 2022. Looking back, he admitted: “If I could go back now I’d probably have got the mastectomy.”
Doctors found clear margins after the lumpectomy, a promising sign. They still recommended 29 days of radiation therapy to be thorough. He was later put on Tamoxifen to keep the disease controlled, though it brought hot flashes among other side effects.
Five years out from that initial discovery, Pfleghardt is preparing for a full body scan this October and wants men to understand they are not immune. “I think a lot more men get breast cancer than they know and it spreads without them realising, and then they die from something else,” he warned. “Because people don’t know they can get it. And then they don’t know what to look for.”
He and his friends still marvel at how the cancer was found. “Me and my friends still laugh about how we found out I had cancer,” Pfleghardt shared. “My friend that pinched me saved my life. I wouldn’t have found the lump otherwise and it would have spread.”